new senses. It is easy to pass this over as obsoleteness; but though many expressions are obsolete and many provincial, though the labor of his commentators has never been so profitably, as well as so diligently employed, as in tracing this by the help of the meanest and most forgotten books of the age, it is impossible to deny that innumerable lines in Shakespeare were not more intelligible in his time than they are at present. Much of this may be forgiven, or rather is so incorporated with the strength of his reason and fancy, that we love it as the proper body of Shakespeare's soul. Still we can justify the very numerous passages which yield to no interpretation, knots which are never unloosed, which conjecture does but cut, or even those, which, if they may at last be understood, keep the attention in perplexity till the first emotion has passed away. And these occur not merely in places where the struggles of the speaker's mind may be well denoted by some obscurities of language, as in the soliloquies of Hamlet and Macbeth, but in dialogues between ordinary personages, and in the business of the play. We learn Shakespeare, in fact, as we learn a language, or as we read a difficult passage in Greek, with the eye glancing on the commentary; and it is only after much study that we come to forget a part, it can be but a part, of the perplexities he has caused us. This was no doubt one reason that he was less read formerly, his style passing for obsolete, though in many parts, as we have just said, it was never much more intelligible than it is. It does not appear probable that Shakespeare was ever placed below, or merely on a level with the other dramatic writers of this period. That his plays were not so frequently represented as those of Fletcher, is little to the purpose; they required a more expensive decoration, a larger company of good performers, and above all, they were less intelligible to a promiscuous audience. But it is certain that throughout the seventeenth century, and even in the writings of Addison and his contemporaries, we seldom or never meet with that complete recognition of his supremacy, and that unhesitating preference of him to all the world, which has become the faith of the last and the present century. And it is remarkable, that this apotheosis, so to speak, of Shakespeare was originally the work of what has been styled a frigid and tasteless generation, the age of George II. Much is certainly due to the stage itself, when those appeared who could guide and control the public taste, and discover that in the poet himself which sluggish imagination could not have reached. The enthusiasm for Shakespeare is nearly coincident with that for Garrick; it was kept up by his followers, and especially by that highly gifted family which has but recently been withdrawn from our stage. Among the commentators on Shakespeare, Warburton, always striving to display his own acuteness and scorn of others, deviates more than any one else from the meaning. Theobald was the first who did a little. Johnson explained much well, but there is something magisterial in the manner wherein he dismisses each play like a boy's exercise, that irritates the reader. His criticism is frequently judicious, but betrays no ardent admiration for Shakespeare. Malone and Steevens were two laborious commentators on the meaning of words and phrases; one dull, the other clever; but the dulness was accompanied by candor and a love of truth, the cleverness by a total absence of both. Neither seems to have had a full discernment of Shakespeare's genius. The numerous critics of the last age, who were not editors, have poured out much that is trite and insipid, much that is hypercritical and erroneous; yet collectively they not only bear witness to the public taste for the poet, but taught men to judge and feel more accurately than they would have done for themselves. Hurd and Lord Kaimes, especially the former, may be reckoned among the best of this class; Mrs. Montagu, perhaps, in her celebrated essay, not very far from the bottom of the list. In the present century, Coleridge and Schlegel, so nearly at the same time that the question of priority and even plagiarism has been mooted, gave a more philosophical, and at the same time a more intrinsically exact view of Shakespeare, than their predecessors. What has since been written, has often been highly acute and æsthetic, but occasionally with an excess of refinement which substitutes the critic for the work. Mrs. Jameson's essays on the female characters of Shakespeare are among the best. It was right that this province of illustration should be reserved for a woman's hand.' -Vol. iii. pp. 574-581. The remaining extract shall be from the critique on the Don Quixote of Cervantes; and here again we have to record our satisfaction that Mr. Hallam's sound judgment has led him to discountenance that over-subtle, transcendental criticism which finds out that Cervantes contemplated certain exquisite and refined objects in the composition of the work, which criticism has but just disclosed that the views entertained of its character by ninety-nine out of every hundred who read it are quite erroneous, and that, in fact, instead of being one of the most mirthful, it is one of the most melancholy books ever written. The first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605. We have no reason, I believe, to suppose that it was written long before. It became immediately popular; and the admiration of the world raised up envious competitors, one of whom, Avellenada, published a continuation in a strain of invective against the author. Cervantes, who cannot be imagined to have ever designed the leaving his romance in so unfinished a state, took time about the second part, which did not appear till 1615. Don Quixote is the only book in the Spanish language which can now be said to possess much of European reputation. It has, however, enjoyed enough to compensate for the neglect of all the rest. It is to Europe in general, what Ariosto is to Italy, and Shakespeare to England; the one book to which the slightest allusions may be made without affectation, but not missed without discredit. Numerous translations and countless editions of them, in every language, bespeak its adaptation to mankind; no critic has been paradoxical enough to withhold his admiration, no reader has ventured to confess a want of relish for that in which the young and old, in every climate, have age after age taken delight. They have doubtless believed that they understood the author's meaning; and, in giving the reins to the gaiety that his fertile invention and comic humour inspired, never thought of any deeper meaning than he announces, or delayed their enjoyment for any metaphysical investigation of his plan. A new school of criticism, however, has of late years arisen in Germany, acute, ingenious, and sometimes eminently successful in philosophical, or as they denominate it, aesthetic analysis of works of taste, but gliding too much into refinement and conjectural hypothesis, and with a tendency to mislead men of inferior capacities for this kind of investigation into mere paradox and absurdity. An instance is supplied, in my opinion, by some remarks of Bouterwek, still more explicitly developed by Sismondi, on the design of Cervantes in Don Quixote, and which have been repeated in other publications. According to these writers, the primary idea is that of a man of elevated character excited by heroic and enthusiastic feelings to the extravagant pitch of wishing to restore the age of chivalry; nor is it possible to form a more mistaken notion of this work than by considering it merely as a satire, intended by the author to ridicule the absurd passion for reading old romances.' The fundamental idea of Don Quixote,' says Sismondi, is the eternal contrast between the spirit of poetry and that of prose. Men of an elevated soul propose to themselves as the object of life to be the defenders of the weak, the support of the oppressed, the champions of justice and innocence. Like Don Quixote, they find on every side the image of the virtues they worship; they believe that disinterestedness, nobleness, courage, in short knight-errantry, are still prevalent; and with no calculation of their own powers, they expose themselves for an ungrateful world, they offer themselves as a sacrifice to the laws and rules of an imaginary state of society.' If this were a true representation of the scheme of Don Quixote, we cannot wonder that some persons should, as M. Sismondi tells us they do, consider it as the most melancholy book that has ever been written. They consider it also, no doubt, one of the most immoral, as chilling and pernicious in its influence on the social converse of mankind, as the Prince of Machiavel is on their political intercourse. 'Cervantes, he proceeds, has shown us in some measure the vanity of greatness of soul and the delusion of heroism. He has drawn in Don Quixote a perfect man (un homme accompli), who is nevertheless the constant object of ridicule. Brave beyond the fabled knights he imitates, disinterested, honorable, generous, the most faithful and respectful of lovers, the best of masters, the most accomplished and well educated of gentlemen, all his enterprizes end in discomfiture to himself, and in mischief to others.' M. Sismondi descants upon the perfections of the knight of La Mancha with a gravity which is not quite easy for his readers to preserve. It might be answered by a phlegmatic observer, that a mere enthusiasm for doing good, if excited by vanity, and not accompanied by common sense, will seldom be very serviceable to ourselves or to others; that men who in their heroism and care for the oppressed, would throw open the cages of lions, and set galley-slaves at liberty, not forgetting to break the limbs of harmless persons whom they mistake for wrongdoers, are a class of whom Don Quixote is the real type; and that the world being much the worse for such heroes, it might not be immoral, notwithstanding their benevolent enthusiasm, to put them out of countenance by a little ridicule. This, however, is not as I conceive, the primary aim of Cervantes; nor do I think that the exhibition of one great truth, as the predominant, but concealed moral of a long work, is in the spirit of his age. He possessed a very thoughtful mind and a profound knowledge of humanity; yet the generalization which the hypothesis of Bouterwek and Sismondi requires for the leading conception of Don Quixote, besides its being a little inconsistent with the valorous and romantic character of its author, belongs to a more advanced period of philosophy than his own. It will at all events, I presume, be admitted that we cannot reason about Don Quixote except from the book, and I think it may be shown in a few words that these ingenious writers have been chiefly misled by some want of consistency which circumstances produced in the author's delineation of his hero.'-Ib. pp. 666—669. Here we must conclude our extracts, and our review. We have not spoken a word of censure; not, of course, that in a work so voluminous and of such a miscellaneous character, we can approve of every sentiment or subscribe to every statement; but because the things to which we object are for the most part inconsiderable. We must, however, justify our title to be considered reviewers (who probably never saw a book with which they could find no fault), by mentioning two of considerable magnitude. They are not sins of commission,' but of omission;' we complain not of what Mr. Hallam has done, but of what he has left undone. In the first place he has not given us the history of mathematics during the last period treated of; that is from 1650 to 1700. His reasons, indeed, for the omission are stated with great modesty. He tells us not only that the length to which he has 'found himself compelled to extend these volumes might be an adequate apology,' but he has one more insuperable in the 'slightness of his own acquaintance with subjects so momentous and difficult, and upon which he could not write without presumptuousness and much peril of betraying ignorance. The names, therefore, of Wallis and Huygens, Newton, and Leib'nitz, must be passed with distant reverence.' We are disposed to think the former apology rather the stronger of the two; for from the manner in which Mr. Hallam has treated the same subject from 1600 to 1650, we cannot help thinking that with the same free and pardonable use of professed writers on the history of this department of science, he might have given a very toler. able summary of the matters now passed over, and in this way have secured the completeness of his work. The other deficiency is, that he has not carried on his history beyond 1700, and what is worse, he appears to have made up his mind never to do so. Considering the gigantic nature of his undertaking, how much he has achieved, how long he must have been oppressed by it, and with what delight he must have recovered his freedom, we cannot wonder at the decision he has come to. When we consider, however, the many men who flourished during the last century (more especially in England, France, and Germany), on whose writings and genius we should have been glad to have the judgment of one so well qualified to pronounce it, we cannot help strongly regretting that we must hope for no more from his pen. At the same time, it becomes the world of letters to express their sincere gratitude for what he has done. Art. IV. 1. Continental India. By J. W. MASSIE, M.R.I.A. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Ward and Co. 1840. 2. British India, in its Relation to the Decline of Hindonism and the Progress of Christianity, &c. By the Rev. W. CAMPBELL. 8vo. pp. 596. London: John Snow. 1839. 3. Sketches of a Missionary's Travels in Egypt, Syria, Western Africa, &c. By R. MAXWELL MACBRAIR, Author of the Mandingo Grammar, &c. 8vo. pp. 332. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1839. FOURTEEN pounds and a few odd shillings to convert to Christianity some hundred millions of idolaters! and a shoemaker for the apostle, who, of course, poor man, amid the profound mysteries of his craft, had never heard the motto, Ne sutor, &c. Such were the taunts that followed the first English missionaries, Carey and Thomas, to the Indian shores; and loud and bitter was the laugh of scorn which a clerical reviewer assisted to raise, while gentle and simple, the learned and the rude, joined most heartily in his sport. Very ludicrous, certainly, that an obscure Christian should be affected with compassion at the awful condition of his fellow men; and, not leaving such matters to his betters, should himself meditate mighty deeds of enterprising benevolence. Of course, there was no elevation of soul, no loftiness of purpose, nothing resembling boldness or magnanimity in the mind that could revolve such thoughts. These workings pro⚫duced a sermon at Northampton, and the sermon a subscription VOL. VII. 2 G |